


midnight campfires

by academmia



Series: wicked ones [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Big Brother Technoblade, Found Family, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Morally gray Wilbur Soot, Niki and Tommy have a lot and common and would be pals if they would just communicate, Niki | Nihachu-centric, Older Sibling Niki | Nihachu, TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur is dead in this but he is very present, anarchist niki, no beta we die like Tommy and techno’s friendship in canon, tommy has trauma because he is a child soilder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28805910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/academmia/pseuds/academmia
Summary: Lots of people think they knew Wilbur Soot. They knew the revolutionary, the president, the terrorist, the dead man. But only 2 people knew the real Wilbur Soot, the man who was a mix of all his titles and so much more. Nihachu and Tommyinnit. And now Wilbur was gone and Tommy and Niki are left to pick up the pieces.(this isn’t “canon” but “canon” can pry Tommy, Niki, and Techno found family from my cold dead hands)
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Technoblade & Tommyinnit, Niki | Nihachu & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, Technoblade & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: wicked ones [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092845
Comments: 24
Kudos: 198





	midnight campfires

  
  
  


No one knows the real Wilbur Soot. Lots of people claim to. Niki stayed silent through hours and hours of meetings where the citizens of a creator tried to reason through why Wilbur did it. As if it was his fault as if his ideas weren’t corrupted and twisted by the people mourning his death.

Wilbur Soot was turned into a symbol. A symbol of revolution, in the beginning, a symbol for a better world. Something the broken people of the server could fight for. He became the symbol of success, a new nation thriving despite Dream’s best efforts. A leader, and then a loser. A symbol of fear and paranoia and how things always sound better than they seem. Wilbur became a symbol of destruction and terror and loss. The man on the wrong side of history.

But before he was Wilbur Soot, he was Niki’s best friend. Before L’Manburg. L’Manburg destroyed him, and Niki was forced to watch. She watches Wilbur’s kindness disappear. She watched him stop giving pep talks and start handing out threats like they were nothing.

She asked him not to do it. For her, for them. He told her he wouldn’t. He blew up L’Manburg and begged his father to kill him. He lied. Maybe Niki’s best friend died the second he wrote to her about starting an independent nation. Maybe she should have stopped him, or done better, or done something when she saw the bombs about to blow.

Wilbur left her. She loved him, he was her best friend and he left. And now Niki is standing on Technoblade’s porch, staring out at the Tundra, with no idea how to feel.

Wilbur died. Niki lived, and now she’s here, out of L’Manburg, staying with Technoblade, and she has no clue what she’s supposed to do now. She hopes blowing it up one last time will heal the hole in her chest.

Sometimes she hears Wilbur in the walls. Calling to her, whispering little jokes, screaming at her, telling her that she should have done better, complimenting her outfit. Wilbur is everywhere, and he is gone and it doesn’t make any sense. 

Sometimes Niki will have a good day, laughing with Tommy over the way Techno dances and she wonders what Wilbur would think of it. She thinks he would like the song, and maybe he would twirl her around and everything would be ok. She knows that man died long before Phil stabbed Wilbur.

Wilbur used to be so full of life. He would dance almost as bad as technoblade and would practically start glowing when he made people laugh. She misses the confused crease of his eyebrows that would appear every time she surprised him with cookies. She misses how he would get stubborn about the stupidest things. 

She stares out into the snow and thinks. Being the best friend of a dead man who couldn’t handle the war anymore and caused so much damage is so lonely. Being the only person in the world who knew the real Wilbur makes her feel like the only person alive. 

Niki likes 3 am. Her brain is a mess, but it’s just her and the stars. Tommy and Technoblade are great, but she needs her space. She wouldn’t say she’s happy here, Niki is far too damaged for that, but in the evenings she trains with Tommy and Techno and she finds herself having fun. 

The front door swings open with a bang and Niki’s hand flies to the hilt of her sword, but there’s no threat. It’s just Tommy, out of breath with haunted eyes and a fake smile.

“Oh hey, Nihachu,”

“Hi Tommy,” She says.

Tommy looks frenzied, energy radiating off him, eyes darting everywhere, limbs twitching violently. Niki keeps herself intentionally relaxed, remembering how Techno always made a point to keep his breathing a little bit slower than necessary when Tommy got like this.

It’s easy to forget that Tommy is a child. He’s bravado and arrogance and going in swinging. He’s loud and he’s a leader. And a child. A child who has been forced into the front lines multiple times. A child who has been through abuse and a child who has been separated from his best friend.

“Niki do you think...do you think Wilbur was a good person?”

“I ask myself that every day,” 

She laughs, and it’s bitter because of course Wilbur would be too complex to ever understand; Of course, he would die before any of them could figure him out.

“He was so nice y’know?” Tommy says, “he told me that he was proud of me and he was smart and funny and he was...I never had family y’know until Tubbo and Wilbur and Wilbur was my older brother.”

  
  


Niki nods. She saw it, she saw how fiercely Wilbur loved Tommy, the way he would rant to her about every stupid thing that he did with a fondness that told Niki he didn’t mind. How one of the reasons L’Manburg was founded was for Tommy to have a place to call home. 

“But he was... Niki-Wilbur was cruel. I don’t know what happened-but Pogtopia was bad. Really bad. It was fucking terrible and I don’t know what happened but he-he stopped hugging me. And it was cold. It was always cold. And I begged him, I begged him not to blow it up and then he went and he fucking did it, he blew up my home, and he left me-“

“Tommy-“

“He left me, He left us, Niki, why did he leave?” Tommy’s voice cracks and he starts to crumble with it.

“Because he was a dickhead.” Niki says, not knowing what could possibly explain to a child why his older brother picked a broken country over him.

Tommy laughs and then he cries, and then he doesn’t stop. Loud sobs start to burst from his chest and he practically jumps into her arms. A hug-Niki still remembers how to hug people. She rubs a hand up and down his back as he cries, and she cries too. For the first time in a long time. She hasn’t processed Wilbur’s death-not like this.

“Is it bad that I miss him?” Tommy says, and she can feel his chest rumble as he speaks.

“No,” she says, “I miss him too,”

“Remember the campfire stories he used to tell?”

“Yeah,” she says, “they were the best”

They would gather around the campfire, all of them in their homemade uniforms as Wilbur would tell stories. Creepy ones, funny ones, stories so bizarre they couldn’t possibly be false. The stars shined in the sky above them and L’Manburg still felt like home. Niki and Wilbur argued over the proper way to roast a marshmallow while Tommy lit his whole stick on fire before presenting a fully burnt s’more to Tubbo.

“And you remember how at the end of the day he would go around telling everyone good night, even if he had worked all day? ,”

“Mhm,” she says, and the tears are coming harder, “I remember,”

She feels like she’s had to grieve Wilbur twice. She has to deal with losing the man who would knock on the door of every citizen’s house to tell them a good night with a warm smile no matter how tired he was and she had to deal with the death of a cruel man who wore the face of Niki’s best friend. She missed him so bad it hurt.

“Why did he have to change?” Tommy says, and he sounds so small, “Why couldn’t everything have been okay and just stayed that way?” 

Niki hates Wilbur. She hates him for leaving them-for leaving Tommy here, clinging to her asking why Wilbur did what he did and she hates him for her silence.

She wants to know why he changed. She wants to know why Wilbur was allowed to be angry and Niki always had to be nice. She wants to go back to the beginning and do everything differently.

“Why didn’t they let me be a fucking Child?”

Tommyinnit knows the real Wilbur Soot. Niki was wrong. She isn’t the only one, there’s another person out there that gets her. Another person that understands how the loss of Wilbur drives you crazy. L’Manburg has given them everything and when it died, Wilbur got to die with it. They didn’t.

Tommy grips the back of her coat and she holds him steady.

Niki wonders if Wilbur can hear her. She hopes he knows that she will protect his little brother. She hopes Wilbur knows she won’t let Wilbur hurt Tommy again. 

“Do you wanna make s’mores?”

“What?”

“I know Technoblade is dead inside but he’s gotta have marshmallows,”

Tommy laughed, “Yeah I know where he keeps his secret stash,”

“You are such a raccoon,”

“Nihachu, do you want the marshmallows or not?”

“Fine fine,” she says, “let’s raid Techno’s secret stash, I’m sure it’ll end well,”

“Yeah!” Tommy shouts, and now there’s a fair chance they will get caught before even making a thievery attempt. 

“If techno catches us I’m using you as a shield,”

Tommy gasps dramatically, “what? Why?”

“He would never hurt you,”

“Yes, he would!”

He was an idiot, a complete absolute idiot for not seeing how much Techno cared. The guy wasn’t even subtle of it. When the three of them went into caves Techno was always putting himself in front of Tommy, holding his sword in a way that dared the mobs to try and kill Tommy. Techno acted like Wilbur before everything went to hell. Sometimes she caught Techno looking at Tommy and Niki was thrown back by the similarity. Techno’s eyes would be filled with protectiveness and warmth, a kind of  _ I swear on my life no one will ever touch you again _ , just like Wilbur a million years ago. 

“Sure Tommy,”

They come back into the house and Tommy pulls out a torch. She follows him through the kitchen. He kneels to the floorboards and pulls it up, loudly enough that Niki hopes Techno is a deep sleeper. He lowers the torch and inside the floors is a bunch of chocolate, marshmallows, and gram crackers, along with a ridiculous amount of pictures of Philza Minecraft.

Niki grabs the snacks and sets the floorboard down, heading for the door, "You coming?"

"Yeah, I'm coming," Tommy says, but he doesn't get up to move.

She knows he has moments like this, where he'll just freeze up. Techno gave her a rundown of house rules when she arrived. Don't tell Tommy to take off his armor was a big one. Don’t raise your voice at Tommy, don’t tell him anything is for his own good, if you catch him staring at the snow for too long don’t let him out of your sight. 

Tommy's eyes glazed over a lot. Niki had seen it happen before, but not as frequently as it did now. Sometimes the three of them would be having breakfast and Tommy would get that look, and he would call Technoblade Dream. Other times he would freeze and start adjusting his chest plate, hands too shaky to get it off, despite no one asking him to take it off in the first place. He always looked so small

"I'll let you roast my marshmallow for me." She says, and Tommy's eyes snap up to her. He looks old. 

"Really."

"Yep."

"It's going to be crispy."

Crispy - burnt to the core.

"I'm counting on it."

Tommy gets up from his spot on the floor and the two of them head back out to the porch. A fire gets lit and supplies are scattered out. Tommy grabs two sticks and stabs a couple of marshmallows with them. He basically shoves them into the fire. The flames crackled and Niki sat on the floor watching. There was something so mesmerizing about the fire. The way it created life and death at the same time. How some people saw fire as a sign of home and for some, it was the worst part of their life. How Tommy managed to use it to make marshmallows completely inedible. 

Tommy pulls the burnt marshmallows out of the fire and offers one to Niki. She takes it and it tastes terrible. She eats it anyway, and Tommy beams at her. 

“You know, for a woman you aren’t so bad.” 

“Thanks,” She says.

She wonders how Tommy is still alive. How he still manages to get out of bed and make jokes after everything he’s been through. How Tommy hasn’t just built another one of his horrific towers and thrown himself off it. Niki knows why she doesn’t. She wants to live long enough to see L’Manburg burn for the last time, but she has no clue what keeps Tommy going when you take away his mask. 

They sit there, almost close enough to touch, eating burnt s’mores under the stars. It’s easy to miss Wilbur when she’s sitting next to Tommy, Niki realizes. She doesn’t have to prove anything to him, she doesn’t have to justify her grief, she doesn’t have to hide her emotions to be taken seriously. Sympathy is fine; Pity is horrible. Niki has gotten those 2 reactions when it comes to the death of Wilbur Soot. Tommyinnit offers her something else. Understanding and no one else can give her that. Not even Wilbur. Tommy’s the only other person who knows what it was like to love Wilbur. To want him to come back and never want to hear his name again all at the same time. 

“Guys it’s called a  _ secret stash _ for a reason,” A voice says from behind them. 

Techno is leaning against the front door of the house, wearing old flannel pajamas with a tired expression on his face. 

“Yeah well your  _ secret stash _ was in  _ our  _ house,” Tommy says. 

“It’s my stuff!” 

“It’s our house!” 

“That’s not how it works!” 

“Well it was Nichahu’s idea, why are you getting mad at me?” 

Niki scoffs, “Well if you weren’t so loud maybe we wouldn’t have gotten caught!” 

“I am not loud!” Tommy shouts, ironically raising his voice. 

“Sure,” Niki and Techno say at the same time. 

“So are you going to make me a marshmallow problem child?” 

“Fine,” Tommy says, and he gets up, but not without muttering a few curse words under his breath. 

“So,” Techno says, “What are you doing up?” 

“Old memories,” Niki confesses. Technoblade is always transparent with her, so she’s found no reason to lie to him, “What about you?” 

“I heard two idiots rumbling around downstairs while I was having a good sleep,”

Niki laughs, and Techno gives her a small smile. She has no idea how she got here, sitting with the strongest warrior of the server waiting for Tommy to make them more burnt marshmallows. 

“Here you go Blade,” Tommy says. 

“Am I supposed to eat this?” 

“Yep,” Niki says. 

“Coward, do two,” Tommy says, and Techno levels him with such a glare Niki is surprised he doesn’t look away.

“You should be jumping with joy that I’m considering eating one of these,” Techno says, “It feels offensive to actual s’mores to call this a marshmallow,” 

“You’re overreacting,” 

“Nope,” Techno says, and then with scary good aim throws the marshmallow at Tommy’s face. 

Tommy gasps dramatically, “You bastard!” 

Wilbur is gone. And Maybe she likes that, and maybe she’ll never get over him, but that doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is the way Tommy is hurling insults at Techno while Technoblade laughs his head off. All that matters is knowing that even though Wilbur is dead, Tommy and Niki live on. All that matters is the way the stars twinkle in the night sky and the taste of burnt marshmallows. All that matters is one day the three of them will be free of L’Manburg. All that matters is this cabin, in the middle of fucking nowhere. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> oh BOY looks like Mr. Blade has older sibling competition! 
> 
> I haven’t seen any streams for a week but I really think it’s interesting how both Niki and Tommy have such complex relationships with Wilbur 
> 
> Comments rock my world!


End file.
